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Ashley Smith: What they did to that girl is indefensible

&nbsp;0:52: (Day 1, on plane) Smith is duct-taped to the seat
1:00: She yells 'Ow! It hurts!' when they bind her hands in duct-tape
1:30: (Day 2) She receives injections on the gurney at Joliette
Institute
1:35: "You're hurting my leg ... Stop hurting it," she yells.
2:10: They threaten her with third injection
2:40: (Day 3) Staff in riot gear give her another forced injection at
5:30 a.m.
3:00: Smith says she needs to use the bathroom
3:15: They give her the injection in her armAshley Smith is shown on a gurney, where she had been left for hours, and then injected five times with powerful anti-psychotic drugs, in a a frame taken from a video shown in court on Wednesday.

Now we know why Correctional Service Canada fought so hard to prevent videotapes of Ashley Smith — the late Ashley Smith, dead at 19, dead five years, dead in custody — from being entered as evidence at a long-delayed, frequently halted, coroner’s inquest.

What they did to that girl is indefensible.

It was medically unjustifiable.

It was punitively disgraceful.

It was institutionally bullying.

It was torture.

The teenager’s family does not believe Ashley committed suicide as an intentional act of self-destruction; that repeatedly tightening a ligature around her own neck, whatever came to hand, was a desperate cry for help, a pitiful plea for human contact from a prison inmate who spent up to 23 hours a day locked down in isolation. She choked to death on Oct. 19, 2007 because none of the guards peering through her cell window intervened, deliberately (following orders) resisted being drawn into her “manipulative” behaviour.

We’re not even into the inquest proper, yet. The video segments were shown Wednesday as part of a motion to severely limit the scope of the legal proceeding, restricting evidence to the final seven days of Ashley’s life. Her family, buttressed by a slew of stakeholders who’ve been granted standing, argue that all of Ashley’s final 11 months in custody should be examined, as presiding coroner Dr. John Carlisle had originally ruled.

Last week, lawyers for Correctional Service went to divisional court in a failed bid to suppress the videotapes within the motion.

The prison service has been joined by lawyers representing a group of physicians from outside Ontario who treated Ashley during that last year — all of them employed by the CSC. Those doctors don’t want to appear at the inquest. As part of the motion to truncate scope, they maintain the coroner’s authority does not extend beyond this province’s borders and they can’t be called.

“We need to start this inquiry off on the right foot to make sure there are no more delays,” Nancy Noble, prison service lawyer, told court, an astonishing remark given that her client has been primarily responsible for the inquiry’s stuttering progress.She further objected: “This is becoming an investigation into how Correctional Service Canada treated Miss Smith and not an investigation into her death.”

Why yes, it may just do that, which surely is the implicit point of an inquest, where the mandate is to determine how such deaths can be averted in the future. The teenager’s treatment — shunted 17 times among nine different prisons in five provinces — is clearly germane, an area that the family’s lawyer Julian Falconer obviously needs to explore as crucial to his position that the treatment — if such it can be called — actually contributed to Ashley’s mental deterioration.

Mistreatment is what comes to mind: “degrading and humiliating,” to quote Falconer.

Here is Ashley on April 12, 2007 aboard the plane delivering her to Quebec, a transfer triggered by an alleged assault upon her — thrown to the floor, head struck repeatedly — by a correctional supervisor at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon.

She is trussed up in Hannibal Lecter restraints, arms cuffed, head swathed in not one but two “spit hoods.”

“Can she breathe?” one of the correctional officers accompanying her asks. This is the only remark remotely indicating concern for the girl’s well-being.

“LET ME GO!” Ashley urges, over and over, in her little-girl voice.

She does not appear out of control, as so often described in “The Ashley File.” She’s not writhing. She’s chafing at the restraints, one hand visibly reddened.

“I am calm. You’re hurting my hand. You’re pulling. . .”

The co-pilot appears and, for no fathomable reason, ties her up even more, using duct tape. If Ashley doesn’t come to heel, he threatens, “I’ll duct tape your face.”

She hasn’t done a single thing to merit such abuse except complain verbally.

Remember, this was a teen whose “crimes,” when she first transected with the judicial system, included throwing crab apples at a postman and pulling fire alarms, incorrigible girl. Once behind bars — they claim — her attitude became increasingly hostile, her conduct confrontational and eventually tipped over into self-harm. These infractions continually extended her custodial time. Because she wouldn’t be pacified, she was tranquilized, constantly injected with drugs against her will.

Shades of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

And here comes Nurse Ratched.

It’s July 22, 2007. Ashley is locked up at the Joliette Institution in Quebec. That morning she’d broken a light plate whilst fidgeting with it. As a result, she’s brought to the infirmary, battened down on a stretcher.

There are eight people surrounding her, nurses and guards. The nurses are in quasi-Hazmat suits, with gas masks. The guards are in full riot gear.

Ashley’s purported non-compliant behaviour — of which there’s no evidence on the tape — has been relayed to the psychiatrist on call over the phone and he’s prescribed powerful anti-psychotic drugs by injection. This, despite CSC policy that forbids “chemical restraints” for treatment of an underlying medical diagnosis, which in Ashley’s case would have encompassed mental illness.

“I’M OKAY!” Ashley insists. Nurse “Melanie” tells the teenager she has no choice in the matter as half a dozen adults pile on the girl — who isn’t much resisting — one actually heaving herself atop the table to press Ashley’s leg flat.

“STOP HURTING ME!

“SHE’S PULLING MY HAIR!

“PULL MY DRESS DOWN!”

Between 1:09 p.m. and 7:57 p.m., Ashley is injected five times. She is left on a gurney, restrained, for nine hours.

She’s warned to stop moving. Or else. “We’ll just keep giving it and giving it and giving it to you.”

“How long do I have to stay here for?” Ashley asks at one point.

“It’s going to take the time that it takes. So far, you haven’t shown us that you will stay calm.”

Plaintively: “But I didn’t even do anything to myself today.”

Ashley hated authority. They don’t come any more authoritarian than this. “One more problem from you and I’m coming back with another injection.”

Four days later, just before 5 a.m., Ashley is roused from sleep. They’re transferring her again. She’s drowsy, no defiance exhibited. Yet she’s injected with drugs again, this time, as Falconer points out, “chemical restraint simply used for the transfer,” preemptively.

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